Traditionally, outboard motors utilize two cycle power heads that ran on a mixture of gasoline and oil. Recently interest has expanded in four cycle power heads which utilize separate sources of fuel and oil held in separate storage tanks. One option is to provide an oil storage area located within the drive shaft housing of the motor.
One problem overcome by the invention is the difficulty of removing oil from the storage area in the drive shaft housing. As the bottom of the storage area is low on the drive shaft housing, a drain plug at the bottom of the oil storage area will be difficult to reach when the motor is on a boat. The plug will also be near the water. Both of these conditions make it difficult to drain the oil from the engine and promote oil spills during the draining process.
The primary advantage of the invention is that it overcomes the draining problem by permitting removal of oil from the motor from a position adjacent to the power head of the motor which is readily accessible even with the motor attached to a boat.
A further advantage of the invention is that it may also support a dip stick for measuring the amount of oil in the oil storage area.